Near the Four Seasons hotel is the Kiyomizudera temple and around that temple are quaint streets with souvenir shops, quaint cafes, restaurants, soft serve 🙂 and tourists dressed in kimonos! It’s so beautiful! There are several streets and pocket alleys. The streets we went to were Ninnen zaka, Sannen zaka, Kiyomizu zaka. Gion is the Geisha town and I hope we can visit another time #H2HKyoto
Category Archives: Kyoto
There are places in Kyoto where you can witness and partake in a tea ceremony
You will dress up in a kimono of your choice! with lots of designs to choose from – from the kimono to the bow to the hair piece. An opportunity to take photos as well. There are several kimono shops around the city where you can rent kimonos to wear and walk around the city and feel like a Geisha 🙂 
Nearby the Deer Park, we ate at Kisoji for Sukiyaki! Yum! 🙂
Address: 2 Chome-125-1 Gakuendaiwacho, Nara, Nara Prefecture 631-0041, Japan
Phone: +81 742-44-3933
We drove an hour or so from Kyoto to Nara to be surrounded by deers 🙂
There are around 1,200 tame deers around Nara park ( one of the oldest parks in Japan). The deers are considered sacred. Visitors feed the deers in the park as they roam freely around #NaraPark #H2HNara #H2HAnimals
Nandaimon Gate, a large wooden gate watched over by two fierce looking statues. Representing the Nio Guardian Kings, the statues are designated national treasures together with the gate itself. 
Todaiji temple, the world’s largest wooden building and home to Japan’s largest Buddha
Todaiji (???, T?daiji, “Great Eastern Temple”) is one of Japan’s most famous and historically significant temples and a landmark of Nara. The temple was constructed in 752 as the head temple of all provincial Buddhist temples of Japan and grew so powerful that the capital was moved from Nara to Nagaoka in 784 in order to lower the temple’s influence on government affairs.
Todaiji’s main hall, the Daibutsuden (Big Buddha Hall) is the world’s largest wooden building, despite the fact that the present reconstruction of 1692 is only two thirds of the original temple hall’s size. The massive building houses one of Japan’s largest bronze statues of Buddha (Daibutsu). The 15 meters tall, seated Buddha represents Vairocana and is flanked by two Bodhisattvas. ( Japan-Guide.com)
The Kinakakuji Golden Pavilion made out of 20 kilos of 24 karat gold leaf. It’s really shining!! The emperor built this to put the ashes of Buddha and to regain trade business with China. It was was originally built as a retirement villa for the shogun. They spent $7.4m to refurbish it in 1987. Super beautiful and really shining like gold #H2HKyoto #thegoldenpavilion
From different angles!! I can stare at this all day 🙂
A beautiful 600 year old pine tree shaped like a boat at the Kinakuji Temple ( Golden Pavilion ) It started out as a bonsai #thegoldenpavilion #H2HKyoto #H2HTrees 
After the tour, we crossed the bridge for lunch
The Togetsu-kyo Bridge ( “Crossing moon” bridge ) a 1,000 year old bridge . The emperor observed the moon crossing from the East to West #Arashiyama #H2HKyoto
Beautiful autumn scenes on the way
Yuzu fruit which is their version of orange
Fresh berries growing in the backyard of homes
Yuzu and Berries! 🙂
Traditional Japanese Kaiseki lunch at Taniguchi ! Yum!
A Kaiseki is made with 30 ingredients – 5-6 Appetizers, Sashimi, A simmered dish, a soup dish, a deep fried dish, vinegared and grilled dish, rice, miso soup and pickles and dessert – all for less than 1,000 calories #H2HKyoto
I love Kyoto! A city with so much history. Kyoto City is the capital of Japan with a bigger size than Tokyo but has a population of only 1.4m compared to Tokyo’s 30m. It is in itself a UNESCO world heritage site. 
There are 2,000 temples -1,600 Buddhist and 400 shinto. 17 of them are UNESCO world heritage sights. There are many ancient temples, shrines, castles that were built by aristocrats and shoguns #H2HKyoto
Nijo jo Temple 
We walked in Saga Toriimoto Preserved street, a historic street lined by traditional townhouses (machiya)
The only Dharma doll that has hair!
Autumn colors are beautiful this year. It has not been like this the past few years! So we were lucky!
Arashiyama
Tenryuji Temple
Sogenchi Garden by the Tenryu Ji Temple – 3 kinds of garden all in one – Landscape, Zen and strolling pond. One of the oldest gardens in Japan and a UNESCO World Heritage Site #SogenchiGarden #H2HKyoto #H2HGardens
From the gardens you reach the Bamboo Forest! Beautiful!! When you are walking here there are so many people but it is still peaceful. You can hear the leaves and the bamboo swaying
Autumn is beautiful
Autumn breakfast buffet
Ala Carte breakfast 
Japanese breakfast
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